Sunday, September 16, 2012

Blog Guru Madness

There are several "Blog Guru" types out there right now (16 September 2012) proclaiming that eMail subscribers are the golden calf for bloggers. As usual, they are WRONG!

Smartphones and tablets are the devices most people are using to communicate with. No longer do folks sit down with a cup of hot coffee, tea or cocoa and spend an hour pouring over their email accounts. For the most part, eMail is now read "on the go." It is something people check while on their way somewhere else. Or they feel their smartphone vibrating and quickly check tomake sure everything is okay at home or the boss isn't calling a meeting or assigning them to some task.

Those people who have subscribed to your blog (and mine) via email are likely NOT READING IT!

Smartphones strip out your ads and sidebar material - it's "post only" - if your subject line is "There's a new post at Sally's blog!" - you are guaranteeing that your email will be "marked as read" and it will drop into that un-highlighted un-bolded area of the in-box where its next stop will likely be "trash."

The subject line should CRYSTALLIZE YOUR MESSAGE - the actual email should be LESS THAN A PARAGRAPH and CONTAIN THE LINK TO THE ACTUAL BLOG POST (not to your main page).

To be honest with you, I have't checked to see how my blog looks to my eMail subscribers - because sitemeters don't count their visits and (going back to what I said above) they can't see my advertisers' adverts!

Tale of Two Blog Gurus

Just like the fellow some new agers have dubbed "sweat lodge wacko" James Arthur Ray, there are a few "loose cannons" running through the blogosphere. A few self-annointed "blog gurus" who think they know everything and think they exist on a higher plane miles above everyone else. I've crossed paths with two who particularly stood out as self-centered and two-faced. After my thankfully brief encounters with them, I came to find through a little creative googling, that other bloggers had had run-ins with them as well.

One individual was head of a "blog network" similar to entrecard. It eventually collapsed. The other believes he is some sort of leader among bloggers and runs a syndication network. The interesting thing about the internet is that it has leveled the playing field in many respects, not all of them good. It enables individuals like these to appear larger than life. The "blog network head" just like "the syndicator" applied his own rules to his little smoke-and-mirrors empire. If you typed something he didn't like or if you didn't explicitly comply with his rules, you were cast out and away.

Both "head" and "syndicator" won't hestitate to use foul and abusive language in a heatbeat if they perceive any, even the tiniest, bit of dissent among followers. And pity anyone who dares to step out of the imaginary lines they draw around other netizens! One of these folks went apeshit - crying "spam!" asloud as he could - when I sent him a simple personal email (but he sees nothing wrong with spamming away).

Any time, blogging friends, you should encounter a promotion or a contest where the "rules and regulations" seem almost like "hoops of fire" you have to jump through - my advice is DON'T BOTHER. Don't waste your time! Even smart bloggers like Jane Sheeba made the mistake of falling under a blog guru's spell. She wised up and got out, but her contributions to the blog network were wiped off the internet like they had never existed (and these were "original content" articles, as demanded by the blog guru!)

2 comments:

Great article. I started blogging more than 4 years ago (off and on) because I wanted to blog about things I cared about. I had no idea what page rank, SEO's, and subscribers were. I am trying to get back to simply writing about what inspires me and connecting with others. Thanks for all the information.

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